Roku announced on Tuesday the launch of a new Streaming Stick which appears to be taking Google’s Chromecast head on. The new device is not much larger than a USB flash drive and connects directly to a television through an HDMI port, bringing streaming media to your TV through a small, hidden package.

The Roku Streaming Stick also comes with a remote control similar to the existing Roku boxes (minus a headphone jack), and a Micro-USB connector for power. It also gives you access too all of the 1,200 streaming media channels that Roku has to offer including YouTube through 1080p and supported by dual-band WiFi.

Compared to Google’s Chromecast this adds a remote, more channels and an extra $15 is cost for the device. The only thing it really can’t access that Chromecast can is your Google Play media …

Roku and Rovio have joined forces to bring the Angry Birds game to Roku’s streaming service. This new service will allow you to play Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, and Angry Birds Rio games all from your Roku streaming box.

There will also be an extra Angry Birds video channel with extra content like short animated Angry Bird stories and the ability to purchase Angry Birds merchandise. The game will be available this summer on a new Roku box. Also a new remote maybe in the development stages for a more functional game controller for future releases. Sounds good.

Sony’s Crackle service has now received an update that will allow it to provide a full range of ad-supported full-length movies and television series to a variety of devices. The update will now stream content to the Sony PlayStation 3, Roku streaming players, Sony’s Blu-ray players, BRAVIA televisions and Streaming Player with wifi, along with Google TV. This is great for PS3 owners as it’s yet another thing the console can do, but we already have plenty of video streaming services.

You can find Crackle in the Channel Store on Roku, on the PlayStation 3 Internet Browser home screen and on all BRAVIA Internet Video devices including Sony Blu-ray players and BRAVIA televisions.

Roku has announced that its Roku XD|S or HD-XR media steaming device now supports playback from USB devices. It came as an included feature in the latest firmware update. That should make users happy.

The feature has been added as another Roku channel and is available in the Channel Store and now supports KV (H.264), MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264), WMV/ASF (WMV9/VC-1), MP3, AAC, JPG, and PNG files. In case you are not familiar with it, the Roku devices allow you to instantly stream movies, TV shows, Netflix, Hulu Plus or Amazon VOD, or even listen to music on Pandora, directly on your TV.

Roku XR owners are celebrating Christmas a bit early as the company has released the 2.9-b1509 firmware update which ups the video support from 720p to 1080p. Nice! So what other improvements does this update include?

Well, there’s Hulu application optimization for quicker navigation and playback along with some other cool stuff. If you haven’t received the update yet, you can always leave your box running and it should update itself at some point. Or if you prefer, you can get the update manually. Just go to Settings->Player Info->Check for Updates. That should do it.

The rumored Hulu Plus price drop has happened. It’s not a big price cut, but it’s still a cut. The $9.99 subscription service has now dipped to $7.99 per month. They are hoping that it’s enough to persuade you to get on board.

If you’re already subscribed, Hulu has you covered with a refund for the difference from the preview price to the current one, which will be applied in your next billing cycle. The other good news is that the list of devices you can enjoy your Plus experience on has just grown by one, as they have added Roku’s hardware.

The NHL has just announced its GameCenter streaming app is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Roku players. It’s free for PlayStation Plus members, while it will cost $9.99 for everyone else. It is free on Roku. Gamers will have access to the app with highlights, stats and information, while subscribers to the $169 GameCenter Live service will get the full package, which includes streaming out-of-market games and some playoff matchups.

It’s a lot like the MLB app that’s available on PS3. Hockey fans will want to check it out right away and see what all the fuss is about.

You’ve been waiting for it and now Roku has finally rolled out its version 2.8 software update. The biggest changes are to the interface itself.

These improvements include a new seasonal home screen banner, the capability to re-order channels on the home screen, an updated Channel Store with a grid of icons and a home screen clock. This update will gradually find its way to Roku boxes over the next few days, or you can just go to the settings menu to force a download right now if you want.

If you haven’t already, it may just be time to cut your cable subscription. You probably already watch more netflix than cable anyway. No mention yet about resolution or bitrate, but we do know that it goes live this fall.

Roku users now have something else to smile about. In addition to Netflix and Amazon on Demand, Roku users can now access baseball games from premium MLB.tv accounts. This means live, out-of-market games as well as on-demand games from the past week.

The downside is that you have to be a subscriber of the paid MLB.tv service, which costs $35 for the remainder of the 2009 season. But chances are that if you are a subscriber already, then you are a serious baseball fan, so it’s probably worth it. The Roku box would be a great way to get on-demand and live baseball on your TV.

Looks like TiVo isn’t the only box offering HD content from Amazon VOD. Now Roku has also announced HD Amazon downloads, available today. The Amazon Video On Demand service came to Roku about a month ago and they seem to be keeping up with updates and supporting HD downloads, which is nice.

We don’t have any details on resolution but pricing should be the same as any other Amazon HD outlet like TiVo where HD TV shows are $3 and HD movies are $4-$5. I don’t think the resolution will disappoint. It seems like a good time to get a Roku box. With Netflix and Amazon support, that $99 purchase is looking pretty good.

The Roku Netflix player was the first device to support streaming movie rentals from Netflix and ushered in an array of devices supporting the Netflix streaming service. One of the best features of the original Roku Player was the cheap $99 price tag.

Roku announced today that its Digital Video Player now supports HD streams of films from Netflix. Other HD streaming partners will reportedly be added to the Roku player as well. The additional providers are expected to debut in q1 2009.

This should make a lot of people happy. After a bit of a wait, I present the first Netflix set-top-box. Previously, Instant Viewing was available only to Windows PC users through the IE browser. But now, thanks to Roku, users can finally tap into at least a chunk of the Netflix library without having to wait for those damn discs in your mailbox for just $99.99.

The Netflix Player can even use a wireless signal to stream, but performance may differ here and there. It’s got HDMI, component, composite, Ethernet, S-Video and a Toslink optical audio jack as far as ports go. No HD support, but things look quite positive so far.